Dritter Klasse Ohne: Fensterscheiben

IN THE SPRING OF 1889, Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Constantinople for the first time. He was enchanted—by the Topkapi Palace, the promontories of the Golden Horn, and in particular (as the rumor went) the exotic gyrations of the Sultan’s harem. The German Emperor, then at the height of his power, became convinced that the destiny of his kingdom resided in the expansion of its frontier into what he whimsically called “the Sultan’s forlorn flank.”

The discovery of vast oil reserves beneath Iraq ratified this notion and led to the conception of the so-called Bagdadbahn, a railway intended to connect Berlin to the Persian Gulf. Using the Ottoman Empire as a fueling station and trade depot, Germany would challenge the imperial dominance of Britain and Russia.

Historians may debate to what extent these ambitions contributed to the First World War. This much is known: in 1912, the Deutsche Bank transferred Wilhelm Geist, a Jew of modest birth and steadfast manner, from Berlin to Constantinople to oversee the project.

Herr Geist brought with him an elegant young wife, an infant daughter, and the conviction that progress required the imposition of will upon the feckless. He quickly discovered that this view did not suit what he had come to regard as the Oriental attitude. If he hoped to recruit a syndicate to fund construction, and to obtain permissions, the parade of minor caliphs who oversaw the regions in question would have to be entertained, fed lavish meals, handed cigars and silver pocket watches.

His wife Eva oversaw these operations.

She was the youngest daughter of an aristocratic Jewish family from a small city outside Munich, a woman who found her deepest sense of self in the assembly of parties: menus, flower arrangements, the hiring of a string quartet. Frau Geist was not a handsome woman but took pride in her appearance. It pleased her enormously to have posed for the German edition of Vogue magazine. She was tall, slender, a skilled conversationalist who understood her husband’s aims and limitations.

CONSTANTINOPLE LAY AT THE INTERSECTION of Europe and Asia, two oceans, a dozen trade routes. Greeks and Romans, Crusaders and Turks had slaughtered one another upon its seven hills, battled for its shipping lanes, laid siege to its monuments. As in all cities of frantic human industry, the dead nourished the delusions of the living.

Wilhelm Geist knew war was on the horizon, but he regarded such matters as temporary disruptions, inefficiencies in a system destined to assign value in a civilized manner. He read the diplomatic cables about Gallipoli, the naval engagement at the Dardanelles. He took note of the German garrison dispatched to guard Dolmabahçe Palace, which housed the remnants of the enfeebled Ottoman government. In the main, he turned his concerns south and east, to the bandit regions of Mesopotamia, the rocky wilderness through which he would forge a steel path to the Promised Land.

As the war turned against Germany, a climate of anxiety settled over the city. British and French forces advanced from Megiddo to Damascus and Beirut. The men and metal necessary to construct a railway were diverted to military campaigns. Geist wrote ardent dispatches to his superiors in Berlin. His parties became an extravagance that seemed to mock the prevailing food shortages. Frau Geist was heard to lament the quality of the liverwurst.

THE GIRL, LEAH, was raised by servants. She saw her mother at supper, her father on Sundays and holidays. Only once was she ushered into his sanctuary. Beside the mahogany desk stood a giant glass bulb that expelled a strip of paper with tiny letters and numbers, which her father held by his fingertips and inspected devoutly.

Her gaze traveled to the vast survey maps tacked to the walls. Herr Geist, who had marked completed sections of track in red ink, pointed to the spot where the color ended. “We shall have to use explosives to make a tunnel in the...